Pharmacy Roundup

I have talked your 'ear' off about the govt funding cuts. A couple of points I don't think I made in an earlier post:

the so called 'inflated' price of generic drugs was set by the provincial govt itself, so who can they blame but themselves?

The 'kickbacks' are actually manufacturer rebates. If Walmart can get rebates from manufacturers on soup to nuts, why isn't pharmacy entitled to the same?

Now, if the govt actually goes through with this piece of ill-thought out legislation, the ones who are gonna suffer will be the smaller, independant pharmacies. Walmart will simply subsidize pharmacy sales with the sales from their shoe departement or the like.

Smaller pharmacies are going to have to makeup the revnue, often in the range of $100,000 a year. They are going to do this by charging for things that up to now were free. Such as delivery. Blisterpacking (where the pharmacy packages up a weeks worth of medication in 'blisters for the patient, So they just pop open the breakfast blister for all their morning medications etc) will now have a 'packaging fee'. Need us to fax your doctor for a refill because that's what the doctor's office wants you to do? We're going to have to charge you for that service.

Need some help picking out a cough syrup? Hope you don't mind waiting because with the staffing cuts that are going to happen, the pharmacist is going to be busy for the next 20 minutes before they can get to your question.

Is your drug plan acting up and saying you owe a deductible or just outright rejecting your card? We're going to say that YOU have to call them and get it sorted out.

Doctor didn't put the limited use code on your prescription so ODB will pay for it? You are going to have to call them to get them to fix it, we won't have time.

Obviously this is going to hurt the people with lower incomes first. The disabled, the elderly. These are exactly the vulnerable groups that NEED our help. But we won't have time, we will be busy doing things that actually get us paid.

Pharmacies are going to have to bill the way lawyers do. For EVERYTHING. How many people do you know can afford the kind of fees lawyers charge?

Stop the govt. Call your MPP. Go to this website, click on the orange button and tell the govt they are shortsighted.

STOPCUTS